Adventure 61: Huinesoron Fails Hilariously

[Huinesoron]

Because my report is so ridiculously long - 8800 words, and more pictures than I care to count (definitely more than I care to input one by one onto RB), I'll post a summary here, and a link to the full version for if you want to read it. I've tried to make it an interesting read, so I do recommend it - but consider yourselves warned!

Adventure 61 - Huinesoron Fails Hilariously (Full Report)

Summary under spoiler tags:

After renaming my capital to something more interesting...

... I made several Pink Dotmaps...

... and expanded peacefully to turn 105.

Then I spent the next, uh, 120 turns fighting off Brennus in the east and Napoleon in the west. Ultimately, I lost two cities to Brennus, but planted two more, and didn't lose anything to Napoleon.

Or rather, didn't lose anything except my entire economy for centuries on end! I was more than a little bit backwards:

Brennus conquered Zara in the west, becoming a ridiculous runaway, while I threw caution to the wind and dragged myself up to the point where I actually researched a tech before an AI!

Naturally, on that very turn, I declared war on him.

Why? Because Kublai was going for a cultural victory, which was crushing the life out of my northern cities.

Over the course of two wars, I stole three of Kublai's five cities, including his Legendary capital. That gave my my favourite graph of the game...

... and gained me control of the Apostolic Palace in time to have my very close friend Brennus vote me Resident. Of course, then Napoleon declared on me and stole Kublai's cities right back - then gifted them back to Kublai and gave him all that culture back.

That was about the greatest actual extent of my empire.

I found what seems to be either a really weird bug, or a really counterintuitive 'feature' of the Apostolic Palace: if the Palace gets taken away from you, you can be Resident...

... but not a candidate for World Pope:

That's particularly irritating since Kublai is actually in Free Religion at that point (and had been for ages). Also:

Had I been on the ballot like I'm almost certain I was supposed to be, I would have won, thanks to Brennus adoring me.

Ultimately, Napoleon failed yet again to take my city, and Brennus claimed a Spaceship victory on turn 414 - nine turns after I think I should have won a Religious Victory.

Final rundown:

Brennus is a runaway.

Brennus is a runaway.

War is hell.

I am Dan Quayle.

So: where did it all go wrong? Other than me not being all that good at Civ, obviously.

I think it was very, very early, back when I chose not to switch to Slavery after Pastel was founded. I should have. I spent twenty or so turns slow-building workers and archers before Brennus attacked: if I'd whipped out those workers, I could've had two gems and two gold connected and been a research powerhouse. Pastel could've had a small army sitting in it. I could have held Brennus in.

My other mistake was, quite simply, not giving in sooner. If I'd given Brennus Pastel for peace, I would have started rebuilding fifty turns sooner, when Napoleon first signed peace. I know my empire had research power available to it - I caught up with Kublai well enough to take three of his cities! - and if I hadn't been so far behind, I could have taken the lead.

But I didn't, and Brennus went to space while I warred with the other losers. But, y'know what, I learned a lot about Civ along the way, things I'd known but never understood (like why floodplains cottages are so incredible, and how to really use the whip). And most importantly, I had fun. And hopefully, somewhere in this immense report, you did too.

Though I still maintain that I won on turn 405.

Final result: Spaceship loss turn 414/claimed Religious win turn 405.

(Hey, I said it was shortER, not that it was SHORT...)

EDIT: I'm seeing several missing pictures in the summary; if anyone else is seeing them too, I'll go rehost them somewhere. Please let me know.
EDIT2: Pictures rehosted; if they don't work now, I've got nuffin'.

[T-hawk]

I do see missing pictures in the summary, failing with a 404.

A long report gives plenty of places to comment:

Roading the deer early wouldn't help anything. You don't need the road to work the food from the tile. You only need the road to connect it for health, which doesn't matter until quite a bit later in the game.

An oasis tile can't be improved (and I think not even settled on), so that wasn't a consideration in that area.

You don't have to wait for rival units to move out of the way. You can move onto and share a tile with them. The game will ask if you want to declare war, but you just click no. Civ 3 and Civ 5 do not allow tile sharing with an opponent, but Civ 4 does.

Free city from Zara - wow, don't see that every day from AIs.

I guess the AI mix came out more warmongery than I realized, and of course you found yourself on the wrong end of that. They were just left as random and I didn't notice any need to adjust them. I thought I remembered all of Kublai and Napoleon and Brennus as only middling aggressors. And I didn't realize how big a backyard Brennus had compared to the others, so certainly understandable that he outbuilt you long term. But the AIs do respond to Pink Dot moves - one of the factors in their war planning is how many tiles you own that should be in their cities' fat crosses.

Refuse tribute from Napoleon - when you're behind in military, you pretty much need to pay up whatever the AIs ask, short of declaring war on somebody else. A couple hundred gold or a resource is a tiny price to pay for significant diplomatic improvement. Gifts that you initiate (deer) don't matter, only tribute that they ask for.

"We start researching currency ... We also start a round of library builds, because research is hard." It's more efficient to do these separately. First save gold, then start running research at 100% after the libraries are done, so you get the multiplied beakers.

I forgot what a giant annoyance the Apostolic Palace can be, funny to read all your tales of woe with it. I don't know all the details of its behaviors, but I can say that the AP is always locked into the religion when it is built. It doesn't switch religions because its holder does or if it changes holders. Once it's built for Judaism, it only ever deals with Judaism. I'm not quite sure why Kublai was eligible and you weren't. But yes, Brennus would have voted for you, all you need is about +8 to +10 net relations and for him not to be up for election himself.

I've never had to fight against an AI with tanks without an answer of my own, so can't help you there. Anti-Tanks don't really beat tanks one-for-one, but they are quite a bit cheaper at least.

But thanks for the report! I read all the way through

[Huinesoron]

Thanks for the comments, T-Hawk! I'll get on with fixing the pictures once I've finished replying.

An oasis tile can't be improved (and I think not even settled on), so that wasn't a consideration in that area.

I actually didn't know that, but noticed it much, much later! Makes sense, I suppose.

You don't have to wait for rival units to move out of the way. You can move onto and share a tile with them. The game will ask if you want to declare war, but you just click no. Civ 3 and Civ 5 do not allow tile sharing with an opponent, but Civ 4 does.

Now this one I did know! I'm not sure where I fell foul of it? The only time I remember dancing around another unit was some barbs while trying to settle Dark...

Free city from Zara - wow, don't see that every day from AIs.

It was quite a shock, I'll tell you that! I was also really surprised to see Brennus give me free oil and I think aluminium during my late wars - I didn't know he cared! (In another game where I'm playing as an observer civ, I found out that, hilariously, the AIs will also gift you techs if you're very, very far behind - like, they'll give you Animal Husbandry while they're researching Gunpowder or higher. Bet most people never see that...!)

Refuse tribute from Napoleon - when you're behind in military, you pretty much need to pay up whatever the AIs ask, short of declaring war on somebody else. A couple hundred gold or a resource is a tiny price to pay for significant diplomatic improvement. Gifts that you initiate (deer) don't matter, only tribute that they ask for.

Yeeeeeeah, I figured that one out a bit late. To make an excuse, Napoleon was nowhere near me - he had to march right through Kublai's domain to come after me. I underestimated the wrath of an AI spurned. (I also thought it was really unfair that I kindly signed Open Borders with him - only to have him come making demands right after. But that's Napoleon for you...!)

"We start researching currency ... We also start a round of library builds, because research is hard." It's more efficient to do these separately. First save gold, then start running research at 100% after the libraries are done, so you get the multiplied beakers.

Hmm, thanks! I'll remember that for next time. Though, uh, hopefully 'next time' I won't be quite so far behind...

I forgot what a giant annoyance the Apostolic Palace can be, funny to read all your tales of woe with it. I don't know all the details of its behaviors, but I can say that the AP is always locked into the religion when it is built. It doesn't switch religions because its holder does or if it changes holders. Once it's built for Judaism, it only ever deals with Judaism. I'm not quite sure why Kublai was eligible and you weren't.

Really? That IS unexpected. I guess I just haven't seen it change hands enough before. My theory about Kublai is that your 'state religion' stays intact when you switch to Free, somewhere down in the code. That, or the current owner (not Resident) is always eligable, similar to the UN.

But yes, Brennus would have voted for you, all you need is about +8 to +10 net relations and for him not to be up for election himself.

What was I at with him... +14 or so? But 8 of that was shared religion; that means that changing over to Judaism to be eligable for the AP would've dropped me down to +6 or below ('heathen religion' penalties), and then he wouldn't have voted for me. And if I got him to switch with me, he'd be eligable... ack, it's all too complicated!

I've never had to fight against an AI with tanks without an answer of my own, so can't help you there. Anti-Tanks don't really beat tanks one-for-one, but they are quite a bit cheaper at least.

Oh, but wait! I forgot! Everyone knows what the counter is for tanks. All I needed was a few spearmen, and Napoleon would've run screaming.

But thanks for the report! I read all the way through

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it - I certainly enjoyed the game. Thanks!

[AdrienIer]

Well this was a good read. I think your biggest mistake was not starting with a worker. While a scout allows you to, well, scout more, a worker gets you food from camping the deer. Then roads to your second city and improves it. It can also chop the settler (the greatest advantage of starting with mining in this game was to get BW early and chop/whip stuff). If you want to try the same game with this in mind I'm sure you'll find yourself in a much better position by turn 100.

[timmy827]

Refuse tribute from Napoleon - when you're behind in military, you pretty much need to pay up whatever the AIs ask, short of declaring war on somebody else. A couple hundred gold or a resource is a tiny price to pay for significant diplomatic improvement. Gifts that you initiate (deer) don't matter, only tribute that they ask for.

Agree on giving in, especially a no tech trading game (it can feel painful to give up a good monopoly tech, but gold is cheap compared to a 1000 beaker tech).

You can get a relations bump from gifting resources, but it is not immediate, takes a long duration gift. It might work for long running resource trades as well.

[Huinesoron]

Well this was a good read. I think your biggest mistake was not starting with a worker. While a scout allows you to, well, scout more, a worker gets you food from camping the deer. Then roads to your second city and improves it. It can also chop the settler (the greatest advantage of starting with mining in this game was to get BW early and chop/whip stuff). If you want to try the same game with this in mind I'm sure you'll find yourself in a much better position by turn 100.

Yeah, my biggest failing was ignoring Bronze Working for ages on end - I don't think I swapped to Slavery until something like turn 80! I think my Scout build was at least vaguely justifiable - I was one of the few people who both found and reached the spot I called Pastel, one of the best Pink Dots on the map (though of course I didn't hold it...!), but not getting my workforce up to scratch was a complete mishandling of the situation. If I were playing again (I probably won't, because I already know the map!), I'd probably go with Scout > Worker > chop Settler. There's... no real excuse for not having done at least that before. I'd also seriously consider swapping the Worker for first place, depending on what my Scout uncovered in the first couple of turns - that western site with floodplains/cows/rice, for instance!

Still, part of the reason I played (and played to the end even though I'd obviously lost) was to learn - so thank you very much for the advice! And thanks for reading!